Hence their resignations, and the circumstances surrounding them, did represent events of real political significance. Subsequently Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, appeared anxious to downplay the importance of “spin” whilst at the same time accepting a modicum of blame for its preponderance as a topic of political discussion. There was, he argued,

“...a growing gap between the real agenda and the Medialand (sic) agenda.... and yes we have to be honest enough to think about our own role in how this situation developed. ‘Spin’ never was as important as people imagine, and it’s even less important now.”

One way of analysing the impact of “spin” on the political process is to break down its forms into their constituent parts — and to use the marketing concepts of “above” and “below-the-line”. “Above-the-line” publicity activities are those, more or less overt, initiatives that would have caused an “old fashioned” press officer no great difficulty. The “below-the-line” activities are those now more associated with the term “spin doctor” — usually covert and as much about strategy and tactics as about the imparting of information (indeed, it could be argued that they in fact have very little to do with the imparting of information). Although it’s important to stress that the below-the-line operations described below, and closely associated with the noble calling of the spin doctor, are not in any sense a New Labour invention. As long as politicians have been politicking, spinners have been spinning.

The most obvious form of above-the-line activity is the stream of daily government announcements. These are made in many different ways — by means of press releases, press conferences or briefings, via interviews and speeches or by a press officer, an adviser or a politician having a discreet word with one or several journalists. But ministers can also make use of all the arcane procedures of the House of Commons — ranging from statements in the House to the issuing of written replies to “planted” questions. This range of devices means that, on the one hand, political journalists receive a constant stream of stories (on an “average” day the table in the reporters’ gallery at the House of Commons groans under the weight of between 40 and 50 press releases). With such a plethora of material cascading around them journalists find that, on the one hand, it is usually reasonably rewarding to follow-up announcements that have been drawn to their attention by press officers but might find it equally easy to miss those announcements that, for one reason or another, nobody has mentioned.

During the course of the political day the opposition parties seek to react as rapidly as possible to these government announcements. They can react in virtually all the ways listed above, apart from using the parliamentary devices, but the commonest means is to wait for, or more likely seek out, the opportunity of putting their case directly. They can do this either by talking with journalists in the lobby or — if the intention is to break into that†same day’s news cycle — then by seeking a broadcast interview, making contact with the Press Association or speaking with the London Evening Standard (which, through its four editions a day, provides a flow of breaking stories for journalists and politicians alike). In media terms, politicians spend much of their time simply reacting to what their opponents have been saying. Much of this sort of reaction follows the same procedures as those utilised in reacting to policy announcements and initiatives. The difference tends to be that reacting to speeches and interviews can develop into an electronic political dialogue. For example, a minister gives an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme; the opposition then picks this up — either directly from Today, from the Press Association or from the Evening Standard. He or she then puts out a counter-statement, and perhaps gives interviews to the lunchtime radio and TV news bulletins. This in turn provokes a counter-reaction from the government whose response can†be heard on Radio 4’s PM programme or the early evening television news bulletins. The opposition then responds in time for the main news bulletins or the late-night BBC2 programme Newsnight. Thus, within one news cycle, an issue can be aired on four occasions, each time both the politician and the media acting in a collusive relationship, within which both have an interest in “moving the story on”. In fact, the insubstantial nature of the original story and its subsequent trajectory can often be detected by the fact that it is not uncommon for stories that have dominated the airwaves during one day to barely feature in the morning’s newspapers the following day.

Consistency

Labour in government has taken the whole process one stage further with a transcript of what Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, has told the 11am lobby meeting now being transmitted to Labour’s media department at Millbank and then faxed to all Labour M.P.s within 30 minutes of the briefing concluding. Thus armed, backbenchers are now fully “up to speed”†with the Government’s policy on the latest breaking stories.

As the politician attempts to stay “on message” the media advisor stands by ready to “spin” should the politician trip up. “Spinning”, which is at the heart of all below-the-line activities, can be characterised more as a process than an event. One moment to observe the process at its purest is the leader’s speech at party conferences. At the Labour conference, for example, the speech is delivered on the Tuesday afternoon. The “spinning” will begin with the Sunday papers being offered a few morsels of what the speech will contain and what its main themes might be — in fact some of these will be deliberately false trails, some attempts at pre-emption or kite-flying, which are discussed later. These†reports will be followed up by the Monday newspapers, whose correspondents will have received a few more tit bits of information to add to the mix. A few hours before the speech itself there will be a formal pre-speech “spin session” when the leader’s press secretary will go through the speech, pointing out its main themes and highlighting particular announcements and even phrases or soundbites. During the speech itself odd moments of spin will occur as press officers sidle up to journalists and suggest particular sections are going well. After the speech the spin continues in a semi-formal debriefing, as journalists huddle around the lead spin doctor; this will be followed by one-to-one briefings. In this operation the broadcasters are crucial because the immediate “post-match analysis” by politicians, TV pundits and conference delegates, is watched avidly by journalists and press officers alike and forms the vital backdrop to the way in which the speech is subsequently reported.

“It’s the economy...stupid” was, for public consumption, the less than elegant phrase that drove Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential Election campaign. However, for insiders, the key phrase was “Speed Kills”†— reflecting the centrality the campaign gave to responding rapidly to attacks from opponents — either as soon as they were made, or better still, before they had even been enunciated. During the British 1997 election campaign one of the most important units within Labour’s Millbank campaign centre was the Rapid Rebuttal Unit. In the 12 months leading up to the election Labour’s rebuttal operation was a major force, impacting both on the media and Labour’s opponents. If the Government, or the Conservative Party, called a press conference to launch a policy initiative or to mount an attack, Labour would announce its own press conference for an hour later in order to rebut the claims. Sometimes their rebuttal was even swifter — if they had word in advance of the Tory onslaught it would not be uncommon, at the conclusion of the Conservative press conference, to be greeted by Labour Party media workers proffering press releases containing instant rebuttal to what had just been announced. It could be quicker still. Journalists listening to the address to the Conservative Party conference at Bournemouth in 1995 given by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kenneth Clarke, found themselves being paged with rebuttal “soundbites” from the office of the Shadow Chancellor, even before Kenneth Clarke had sat down. And quicker still — a “pre-buttal” statement might be issued in advance of the original attack even being made.

Exclusives

During the summer of 1996, for example, the Labour Party kept their attack against the Conservative Government’s privatisation measures on track by ensuring that a constant supply of anti-privatisation stories found their way into the printed and electronic media. One very effective way of intervening in the news agenda setting process is through a relatively new phenomenon, but one that now plays a significant part in the Government’s (and to a lesser extent the Opposition’s) armoury, that of the “planted article”. This involves a government or political party supplying a newspaper or magazine with a major article with a senior politician’s by-line. This technique is characterised as “below-the-line” because whilst the activity appears overt it is, usually, not so. For despite the by-line that might appear over the article, (the Prime Minister’s or the Leader of the Opposition’s, for example), almost invariably the article will in fact have been written by a member of the leader’s media team. Alastair Campbell, in particular, has been writing regularly for the tabloid press under the name of Tony Blair ever since Blair’s election to the leadership of the Labour Party in 1994. This means of dissemination is ideal in terms of media management. It allows the politician to make an argument, on his or her own terms which is only subsequently open to challenge by journalists and opposing politicians after he or she has established the terms of debate unchallenged.

Spin doctors now speak of constructing a “firebreak” for a story. This entails creating a media diversion to take journalists off the scent of an embarrassing story that seems, in the journalistic parlance, to have developed “legs”. A classic of the genre was successfully invoked by Labour in the summer of 1997 when the News of the World revealed that the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, was engaged in an extra-marital affair with his secretary. As a result Cook, under pressure from Alastair Campbell, announced that he was going to leave his wife. Labour’s spin team reacted with speed. Apart from ensuring that Cook dealt with his own personal crisis head on they “created” two other stories to take journalists eyes off the difficulties of the Foreign Secretary. First, the Sunday Times was leaked the story that MI6 was investigating the former Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, over alleged breaches of the Official Secrets Act, and in a radio interview on the same day Peter Mandelson suggested that the Government was thinking about reprieving the Royal Yacht Britannia, which was due to be scrapped. The results were to be seen on the front pages of the following day’s broadsheets with none leading on the Robin Cook story, a result of what one member of the Downing Street press team described as “a fantastic operation”

“Stoking the fire” is the mirror image of “firebreaking” — finding material to keep an opponent’s awkward story running. An example of when this tactic has been used with some success was over continuing allegations that Labour’s former Paymaster-General, Geoffrey Robinson, charged with plugging loopholes in the tax system, was himself involved in activities that the Conservatives claimed involved tax avoidance. A well-orchestrated Conservative campaign, involving both selected newspapers and opposition frontbenchers, succeeded in keeping this story running for many months at the end of 1997 and in the first half of 1998. These allegations undermined Robinson’s position to such an extent that he was eventually forced to stand down.

A key part of below-the-line activity is building up the reputations of the favoured few. The classic case of this was the exercise undertaken by Peter Mandelson when, as Labour’s Director of Communications, he set out to build-up the media profiles of two young Labour†MPs — Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. This he did by consistently putting their names forward to radio and television producers who were in search of interviewees, drawing journalists’ attention to their press releases (and there was never any shortage of these) and by briefing journalists on a regular basis that these two MPs were politicians to watch. A similar operation was mounted by the Conservatives in 1999, following the realisation that in their Shadow Home Secretary, Anne Widdecombe, they had the makings of an unlikely media “star”, During the summer months, in the absence of party leader William Hague, Ms. Widdecombe claimed to have given 138 broadcast interviews.

Biffen

“...Biffen was left to twist in the wind for another year, before eventually being cut down and deposited on the back-benches two days after the 1987 General Election”Æ

A mirror image of pre-empting is “kite-flying” in which governments or parties use the media to float potentially problematic proposals in order to test public and media reaction. Kite flying can most obviously be witnessed in the weeks leading up to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s budget statement. A week before the Conservatives’ Budget in 1995 a story appeared in the Observer claiming that the Chancellor was intending to introduce a windfall profits tax on the public utilities. It was, as subsequent events revealed, untrue (although the Labour Government did in fact introduce such a tax two years later). It was, however, a typical case of either kite-flying or pre-empting. In other words the story either emanated from the Chancellor’s office, which was keen to gauge reaction to the introduction of such a tax, or came from those opposed to such a tax who wanted to create a level of opposition which would pre-empt the introduction of such a measure.

Yet another ploy much associated with budget-time is raising and lowering expectations. A familiar routine is for the Chancellor to discreetly “let it be known” that this year the budget is expected to be particularly difficult. “Informed speculation” appears at regular intervals as to the extent to which taxes are going to have to go up. The worst†is expected and then, seemingly miraculously, a little extra is found here, a little less is required there, and the budget is hailed as a triumph. The opposite process comes into play when Chancellors of the Exchequer find themselves in situations of potential conflict with ministerial colleagues. For example, in 1998 during the weeks preceding the budget, the Social Security Secretary, Harriet Harman, or at least her press advisers, were leading journalists to believe that the forthcoming budget would contain significant relief for lone parent families (this would have offset an earlier controversial cut in their benefit). Ms Harman was fighting for her political life and anxious to gain as much political advantage as she could in the pre-budget phase. However, her actions had the effect of raising expectations that the Chancellor, almost inevitably, would find difficult to meet — if there is good news to be broken at budget time then Chancellors tend to want to retain these plaudits for themselves.

†“Milking a story” is the technique by which a Government, or for that matter a party, extracts as much positive media coverage out of a given situation as possible. The present Government has developed this almost to an art form. Indeed Betty Boothroyd, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has complained vociferously about the way that announcements, that ought to be made first in the House of Commons, are trailed many days in advance in the newspapers and on the broadcast media. A Political Editor for a national broadsheet described how the process felt from his side of the Parliamentary Gallery:

“Spin doctors are very clever. They work out a strategy for presenting a White Paper and then they say right, we’ll give a little bit to the Sundays, another bit to the Mondays, and then another bit to the ‘Today’ programme on Wednesday when we launch the White Paper, and there’s not much the journalist can do about that sort of operation.”†

Camouflage

The “White Commonwealth” is the name given to the creation of a favoured group of correspondents who receive special treatment and access above and beyond that available to other political correspondents. The name originated under Harold Wilson and his Press Secretary Joe Haines, who at the time of the Rhodesia crisis relied on a group of trusted journalists to provide favourable coverage and helpful advice. BBC political correspondent Nick Jones described the workings of the “white commonwealth” under the regime of Bernard Ingham, and how it tended to allow Ingham a relatively easy ride in the lobby briefings:

“Under Ingham’s no-nonsense regime those reporters who were employed by newspapers sympathetic to the government had no wish to sour relations by challenging him needlessly. They knew they had every chance of speaking to him by phone after the organised briefing, when they might find it easier to obtain the information they wanted.”

Jones makes similar claims about the existence of a “white commonwealth” under both John Major’s and Tony Blair’s regimes.

Of course the notion of any privileged “in group” requires an “out group” which is less privileged. Reporters “out of the loop” can find themselves not just excluded from sources of information, but also bullied and intimidated. Bernard Ingham was the first to be charged with such behaviour, but under Labour the tactic has been developed further. Even in opposition, dealing with Labour’s media machine posed something of a quandary for the political journalist: accept the line, the spokesperson, the story and all would be well — the journalist would get his or her interviewees, a regular dripfeed of minor “exclusives” and the sense of being “on the inside”. However, sign-up for the “awkward squad” and the result would be interview bids turned down, access to breaking stories denied and no flow of “exclusives”. It’s a dilemma that faces all journalists, in any sort of lobby, all the time, but with New Labour it’s particularly acute because the “game”, such†as it is, has been and is played with an unprecedented degree of bitterness and brutality, and not just by Alastair Campbell. In the run-up to the 1997 General Election the Political Editor of the Daily Telegraph, George Jones, often bore the brunt of attacks from Labour’s media managers. He hit back with a front page story “Why I will Not be Intimidated’’

“… it is another example of a campaign of intimidation by Mr Mandelson against journalists who write anything with which they do not agree or which is critical of Labour. Mr Mandelson seems to believe that if he can embarrass people in front of their colleagues they will be less likely to write anything that can be seen as anti-Labour.”

Following the problems the Government ran into at the beginning of 1999 with the resignations of Mandelson, Whelan and Robinson much has been made about this being the end of “government by spin” and the return to a more traditional policy-based political discourse. Indeed, in the weeks following the resignations of Mandelson et al, the Prime Minister and his fellow cabinet members launched a series of initiatives designed to turn attention away, as Mr Blair put it, from “the froth” towards the policy agenda. Yet this in itself was seen as part of a spin operation, with ministers re-launching a series of existing policies (“milking a story” in terms of the above typologies.) And there were those, some with significant insight into the workings of the new Labour information machine, who were suggesting that the Government would find it difficult, if not impossible, to wean itself off its addiction to “spin”. Romola Christopherson, who resigned as Head of Information from the Department of Health at the start of 1999, wrote:

“It is impossible to separate Campbell from Blair from New Labour from government from communication. They are one concept.”

Ms Christopherson’s diagnosis of new Labour’s addiction is unambiguous; whether or not it is prescient remains to be seen.